perfSONAR User Q&A and Other Discussion

[Brian Candler <>]

On 19/07/2018 15:35, Roberto Carna wrote:
> In our company we have two interconnected sites by a L2L link, both
> sites are connected to Internet through their own links, and from each
> site we have LAN and DMZ's networks.
>
> Because I'm new at this network measurement solution, I need your
> opinion about the minimal points from my network scenario where I
> should install perfSONAR in order to start analyzing network traffic
> and knowing the features we can use.

I have a similar situation, although some sites are linked via P2P and 
some via VPN.

perfsonar doesn't work through NAT, so I have two nodes in each site:

- one node outside the firewall, on a public IP address
- one node inside the firewall, on a private IP address

Then I run tests between a mesh of the public nodes, and a separate set 
of tests between a mesh of the private nodes.

I find this helpful.  For example, I can see if there's a problem with 
the VPN; and if there is, based on whether the public connectivity is 
working well or not, I can infer that the problem is more likely with 
the VPN/firewalls.

I use low-cost NUC nodes.  They are Intel DN2820 (N2820 / 2 cores / 
2.13GHz), which are no longer available; I believe the nearest 
equivalents are NUC6CAYH (J3455 / 4 cores / 1.5GHz) or NUC7CJYH (J4005 / 
2 cores / 2.0GHz).

Cost is around $115 but you'll need to add DDR3L RAM (4G or 8G) and a 
2.5" HDD or SSD.  They fill a gigabit quite happily.